PANEL CONSIDERS SWEEPING CHANGES TO SPECIAL EDUCATION FUNDING
(AUSTIN) — The state’s school finance system would base additional funding for special education students on the type and intensity of services provided, rather than where they receive those services, under a bill considered by the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday. Bill author and Houston Senator Paul Bettencourt says that the bill represents a sea change in the way the state educates the nearly 800,000 students that qualify for some form of special education accommodation. “This is a groundbreaking special education bill,” said Bettencourt. “The transformation to an intensity-based model, I think, will lead to stunningly better outcomes.”
The bill, SB 568, was developed from recommendations by a blue ribbon panel charged with examining the state of special education in Texas and developing ways to improve it. The Texas Commission on Special Education Funding found that the current model of funding is outdated and insufficient to meet the needs of special ed students in Texas. “The special education system required that we tear down the system and start over if we are to be successful,” said Dr. Dan Huberty, a former state representative and House Public Education Committee Chair who served alongside Bettencourt on the commission. He called SB 568 the “most transformative, important” bill the committee will consider this session.
The current, settings-based funding approach doesn’t account for the individualized needs of every special ed student. SB 568 would direct the TEA to create eight different tiers, ranging from a student who receives speech therapy as their only instructional service all the way up to students best served by residential placement, and use that to weight special education funding. Today, two special ed students in one classroom could receive the same amount of funding regardless of needs or services provided; SB 568 would account for those differences based on services provided, and adjust funding accordingly. It would also create four service tiers of additional funding to account for extra personnel or materials needed to meet students accommodations.
Beyond the central provision that fundamentally changes the funding model, the bill includes a number of other elements aimed at improving the special education system in Texas. The bill seeks to increase the number of qualified teachers with a grant program to both train and hire more credentialed special education teachers. Cypress Fair ISD Superintendent Dr. Douglas Killian, on hand to testify in favor of the bill, said that of the 388 teaching vacancies in his district, nearly half are for special education positions.
The bill also restores grants paid to districts to help them educate students with dyslexia or autism, and increases funding for special ed transportation. It would help offset the cost of initial special ed assessments, which can cost up to $5,000, with state funds, and double the outcome bonus for students who receive special education and graduate into college, the workforce, or military.
The committee also considered a bill that would require instruction into the history and harms of communism. One of Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s priority bills, SB 24, by New Braunfels Senator Donna Campbell, would require this curriculum for all students starting with 4th grade. “It’s important for our students to understand the stark contrast between communist ideology and the founding principles of the United States, such as individual liberty, free enterprise, and democratic governance,” said Campbell. Committee chair and Conroe Senator Brandon Creighton cited a recent study that shows approval for communism growing among younger Americans, with one-third of Americans aged 16-23 deeming Marxism as “worthy of support.” That same demographic showed six percent approval for the ideology in 2019.
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